Friday, July 21, 2006

Home Boy Disclaimer

For the record, I don't write about real places or real people in my novels. All the characters in my novels, as well as their names, are fictitious and the towns, townships and counties in which they live are fictional places in Pennsylvania and do not really exist.

In addition, there are no composite characters in my books, no "take-offs" on or "rip-offs" of people I have known, although I occasionally give certain "tics" and eccentricities to older characters for humorous effect and in gratitude for the source of childhood wonder they provided. However, in my novels I never write about Snow Shoe, my hometown, or Centre County, my home county, or any of the people who live there now or who ever lived there before. The only similarity between those places and the places I write about is the coal and lumber history, which is fairly commonplace in much of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region.

In my novels, my focus is on a quadrangular, fictional part of Pennsylvania that would lie somewhere between the following real places: Smethport in McKean County and Wellsboro in Tioga County as the northern border and between Clearfield in Clearfield County and Lock Haven in Clinton County as the southern border. This is the fictional vicinity of the Pennsylvania I write about. I picked this part of the state for my fiction because this is the part I know the best and love the most.

The only exception to this rule is in Deeds of Destiny, my 5th novel. The first half of this story takes place in a fictional part of southeastern Pennsylvania that would lie somewhere between York and Philadelphia, if it were real. The second half of this story takes place in a fictional section of the above-mentioned area of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region.

So, while my novels are fiction, they also pay homage to the rich history and the beautiful topography of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Psychic Tidbit

When I was in my mid-twenties I was pretty skinny and also fairly psychic (as if those two conditions were somehow related). Anyway, I once demonstrated to my father and to my girlfriend at that time that I could place a playing card against my forehead without looking at it, facing out so they could see the card, and tell them in a few seconds what the card was. I was so good at it that one day I correctly identified all 52 cards in a poker deck (that's a 100% score).

Now, you scoffers can make whatever you want of this, because I know there are a lot of people who have nothing better to do than make fun of what other people are saying, but this is the honest truth. Now, I have no idea why I could do this at that time in my life and why I haven't been able to do it since. And, you know what? None of that matters to me anymore.

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Science Fiction for Thinkers

I don't write comic book SciFi. And I don't write Fantasy, although all my works contain some elements of fantasy in them. But there are no capes and swords, no hooded ghouls or space knights in my books.

When you unmask real life, what you see is a lot spookier and astonishing than anything purely imaginary, and that's what I do. I take an average American town or an average day in the life of an average man or woman and I peek under that rock and expose the supernatural roller coaster ride that runs beneath it all.

And on that roller coaster ride many battles are won and lost and many unlikely heroes emerge and all of it seems so real. And that's because most of it really is. And that's because there's a lot more to life than what we see, hear, smell, taste or feel. And much, much more than we think.

Saturday, July 1, 2006

My Favorite Redhead

For me, it just has to be Karen Smitrovich, the major female character in my trilogy, consisting of Evermore, Time and Time Again and Providence.

Karen is twenty-seven and single when The Evermore Trilogy begins and her hair is actually auburn, not red. She is also the sole heir to a coal mining fortune in Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region. When she meets Jack Rand and gets involved in his mysterious, bewildering life, her own life is changed forever.

All my novels have strong female characters in them, each one a main character. Two others are redheads, one is brunette and one is bald. Yep, bald as a cueball.